What We Played #646 – Dragon’s Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin & Alone in the Dark

Another hectic week is in the bag, and I’ve been playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 so I could collect the video footage for our review and obviously not for any kind of enjoyment. It is definitely very, very fun though, even if you have to look out for the odd disappearing Pawn on PS5. Other than that it’s been New Star GP, Unicorn Overlord, Street Fighter 6, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and some Songs of Silence for my gaming week.

The actual Dragon’s Dogma 2 review was handled by Jason, who had very little but glowing praise for the long-awaited sequel – “I’ve actually nearly doubled the time I put in when I finished it and have yet to run out of new stuff to find.”

Gamoc completed the DLC missions for Midnight Suns, “which were even more comic-y than the main game,” and started a Dark Urge character in Baldur’s Gate 3, immediately behanded Gale to break his oath, and is now an Oathbreaker Paladin who can command the undead. Those dark urges got the better of him though, as Jason’s review managed to convince him to throw money at Dragon’s Dogma 2… and has already “accidentally” thrown his main pawn off a cliff into an ocean.

For Aran it was Rise of the Ronin for our review, and he says that “while at first I had gripes with the game I ended up loving it,” so it’s well worth checking out if you’re after more Japanese open world adventuring.

Steve’s kept on plugging away at Final Fantasy VII Rebirth when he has a free moment, while Nick P has now sunk around 95 hours into the JRPG epic. On the side, he’s also dipped back into DBD, played a little Predator: Hunting Grounds, South Park: Snow Day! for review next week, and made a start on Dragon’s Dogma 2.

Ade has masochistically continued to enjoy Skull and Bones, claiming that “there has been some terrific new PVP and leaderboard features added in the latest update.” He’s also been playing Valiant Hearts 2, “which is proving to be just as wonderful as the original.”

The third big game of the week comes in the form of Alone in the Dark, but sadly Jim thought it was more of a mixed bag. “Some interesting ideas when it comes to story and setting though ultimately let down by its attempts to weave third person action into the mix. I get it, that’s pretty much the norm for survival nowadays (Alan Wake 2, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Calisto Protocol) but it doesn’t work well in this instance.

“Speaking of third person shooters,” he continued, “I’ve been revisiting one of the veryl best with the Star Wars Battlefront Collection. I know it’s been getting a bad rep for multiplayer server woes, but I’ve been enjoying my time with it. Pretty primitive by today’s standards (especially when directly comparing it to EA’s most recent Battlefront 2) but has been such a nostalgic experience replaying the campaigns and dipping into some Galactic Conquest.”

And finally, Tef has been doggedly jumping into the fray of Helldivers 2, as per usual, but is mixing it up with some Lightyear Frontier for some calmer mech-based farming, and Millennia for review next week.